One of the interesting side effects of the improvement in vehicle quality and reliability has been that the difference between new and used has become much more fuzzy.
I'm old enough to remember when vehicles came with a 12 month, 12,000 mile warranty, and when vehicles had 5 digit odometers for a reason: Because by the time a vehicle's odometer had "turned over", that vehicle was ready for major repair work.
But those days are long in the past, and nowadays, getting 100k or even 200k from a vehicle is not considered out-of-the-ordinary. My '07 4runner has about 116k on it and still feels "new" to me.
I honestly see no point in buying new anymore. New vehicle prices are absolutely ridiculous, and the taxes and insurance on top of that just add to the cost.
I seem to average around 11,000 miles/year on my vehicles, meaning that even if I can only expect a vehicle to go 50,000 miles after I get it before it needs major repair work, that's still almost 5 years - and the longest I've ever kept a vehicle was 7 years and 133,000 miles (and that was when I was single and driving a LOT. It was also when gas was <$1/gallon.)
Of course, the other factor for me is geography: I'm fortunate to live in a place that's very dry, has relatively mild winters (in terms of snow/ice anyway) and where they don't use much salt on the roads.
For that reason, there are lots of vehicles available on the used market that have relatively high miles but are in pretty good shape overall. Those who live in the Northeast or near an ocean don't have that luxury - in those parts of the country, a 5 year old vehicle with 125k on it might be mechanically sound but the body is often severely rusted, and there's not a lot you can do about that. And even a vehicle that's not severely rusted after 4 or 5 years is nowhere near as "clean" as a new one.
So if I lived in one of those places, I might see a more significant difference between new and used.
